RN Sea Based Ballistic Missile

[NOMISYRRUC]

Beaufre was serving with General Aimé Doumenc, who in May 1940 tried to shook Generalissime Maurice Gamelin out of his ineptitude and complacency - and failed. Beaufre was still ashamed of the whole thing a quarter of century later (he gave a memorable testimony in the BBC "The World at War" (1973) and in a french documentary by Daniel Costelle).

For what's it's worth that's one of the British TV programmes that the BBC receives credit for when it was made by Independent Television (ITV) also known as "The Other Side" an expression (which as far a I know) dates back to the period 1955-64 when there were only two TV channels in the UK (the BBC Television Service, now BBC 1 and ITV, now ITV 1).

Specifically, it was made by Thames Television, which held ITV's London Weekday Franchise from 1968 to 1992. But to confuse matters after Thames ceased to become part of ITV it sold the show to the BBC who put it on BBC 2 in the 1990s and 2000s.

 

[uk 75]

The problem for anyone wanting to develop a truly independent British nuclear deterrent is whether it is worth doing?

It is popularly assumed that the nuclear deterrent exists to prevent the Soviet Union/Russia starting a war which will inevitably lead to both sides losing their key population centres.

Some cynical observers have suggested it exists to destroy France or Germany (such people are usually found in the lounge at pubs or golf courses).

The Soviet Union/Russia has always dismissed the British nuclear deterrent, noting that all of the UK would be annihilated by Russian weapons.

I have always taken the view that our nuclear weapons exist to ensure that no US President could leave Europe undefended because we can destroy Moscow and St Petersburg. Any surviving Russian authorities would have no choice but to hit US as well as UK targets. More mundanely our nuclear weapons get us a seat in Washington when key nuclear decisions are taken.
This was true between Bomber Command and SAC. It continued with Polaris and Trident.
None of the nuclear capable PMs (Macmillan, Wilson through to Sunak) seriously envisaged the UK going it alone against Russia.
Wilson's offer to protect India from nuclear China with V bombers was rejected by proudly non-aligned India. This is the only case I have read where we went alone.

 

[zen]

The problem for anyone wanting to develop a truly independent British nuclear deterrent is whether it is worth doing?

It was decided to do this by the Labour Government of Atlee in a period where the UK had lost a third of it's trade, a quarter of it's wealth.(crucially liquid capital that all been sunk into US industry) under the burden of paying back loans to the US, having fought WWII since 1939 and by 1948 started planning for what seem to the very real prospect of a coming domestic famine.

 

[uk 75]

My point is that France showed it was possible to have an independent nuclear deterrent starting with battlefield missiles and tactical nuclear bombs and a triad of bombers, MRBMs and SLBMs.
It is interesting to examine as this thread does how the UK might have done the same with an MRBM/SLBM. Some good information has come out here.
But in the real world it was never going to happen.

 

[a5mg4n]

a.
since many AIP submarine today carring lots of LOX for months.
how about a Blue Streak carring SSBN(like USN Jupiter SSBN concept)?
b.
since HTP so dangerous,but no other choice
how about build a big dumb missile and carry it outside the sub(or tow it behind),
and let the missile free floating before launch?
(smaller HTP Sea Dragon)

 

[uk 75]

One way you could get an earlier submarine missile programme for the UK is to screw up development of the V force in the early 50s.
The Valiant, Victor and Vulcan prove too complex and the Shorts Sperrin is ordered instead. By 1954 the new Conservative government has had enough and Churchill orders Mountbatten and the RN to "get a grip" on the deterrent.

 

[uk 75]

Mountbatten carrying out a Churchill instruction in the mid fifties could have got a submarine based deterrent.
The UK does not get its first nuclear submarine until the Dreadnought and needs US support to get that into service. Valiant, the second sub, has a British reactor though.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Pardon me, binged the thread.

According to Roy Dommett, the Polaris missiles eventually needed refurbishing, replacing the existing fuel. The US Navy had long since abandoned Polaris, and so Lockheed rehired retired engineers to work on the job - and charged us a fortune,

Anyone working with solid rockets knows they have a use-by date. Beyond that they have a risk of cracking, and cracked solid rockets have a very impressive failure mode. Trident 2 first stage will blow a crater some 200ft across or more and a good 50ft deep into high desert hardpan.

That some idiot minister didn't bother to include inspections and motor refresh in the original contract is not the fault of LockMart.

It's quite an assumption that UK science and engineering couldn't develop a missile compartment for submarines. Even more so in the 50's.

Reference to Dreadnought and Valiant doesn't refute anything, beyond the precise timing of the first SSBN. A year slip to '66 seems modest compared to a lot of other projects.

And this talk of '63 is frankly OTL where infrastructure wasn't available without future spending.
In this AH scenario that spending has already occurred by '63 in substantial quantities.

You'd be surprised at just how complex a missile compartment is.

• You obviously need the tubes themselves, which need to be able to take full sea pressure once fired.
• You need nitrogen tanks, to inert and pressurize the tube before firing.
• You need to develop the cold-launch system and a reliable ignitor for the first stage rocket once it clears the water.
• You need a hydraulic system with enough volume to move 4 or so hatches at a time, since we're assuming a Grand Mal "shoot off everything" mission. Hatches and locking rings.
• You need all the monitoring stuff.
• You need guidance and control space and equipment.
• And all of it needs to be set up so that it's secure from someone messing with whatever they can get access to.

Presumably a land based silo that is going to launch a missile that will also be launched by a submarine, or surface ship, will be different from one that would launch a missile that was only to be launched from a land based silo?

Well, one of the key differences is that most land based missiles are hot launch, while SLBMs are cold launch.

What is the status of Stirling engines at this time for possible use in submarines?

I'm not sure that any had been tried for AIP yet. You'd need something to supply the oxidizer, whether LOX, compressed O2, HTP, doesn't matter. And you'd need a way to push the exhaust overboard against sea pressure, that could be as simple as a big low-pressure blower like they use in the mines.